Astra
The outer lock began to close before we reached the bridge.
Its iron brace descended across the tunnel mouth, shedding rust and stone dust as it moved. Caspian pulled free of my shoulder.
“Go.”
He could barely fill his lungs, but there was no room to support him through the narrowing gap. I ducked beneath the brace. Delphine came behind me with one hand pressed over the hearing pages inside her coat. Hale pushed Kieran through next and turned to reach for Caspian.
Caspian dropped to one knee and slid beneath the iron.
Hale caught his coat before his injured side struck the ground. The brace hit stone behind his boots hard enough to send the impact through the boards at the foot of the bridge.
The alarm disappeared with the tunnel.
Cold night opened around us.
For the first time since entering the Tower, there was no stone above my head. Clouds moved across a narrow moon, and the air smelled of wet leaves instead of minerals. I dragged in a breath deep enough to hurt.
“Across,” Hale said.
The bridge stretched into the dark, its boards silvered by the Tower’s light. Black water lay far below. I had crossed toward the Tower watching only my next step. Now the far end looked impossibly distant.
Hale took Kieran’s left side. I moved beneath Caspian’s arm again, careful not to press his ribs. Delphine went ahead of us.
Her first step onto the bridge stopped her.
I remembered her initials cut into the tunnel wall. She had crossed this bridge once before, days after the west door closed behind her, moving toward the Tower with no choice about where she was being taken. No one had allowed her to turn back.
“Delphine.”
She looked back.
“Keep going.”
Her mouth trembled. Then she faced the far side and stepped onto the next board.
We crossed as quickly as the injured men could manage. The boards shifted beneath our combined weight. Wind came over the water and flattened my dress against my legs.
Halfway across, light appeared behind us.
A narrow silver line opened beneath the iron brace at the tunnel mouth.
“They’re raising it,” Kieran said.
Hale tightened his hold. “Don’t turn around.”
Kieran did anyway. His foot caught the edge of a board.
Kieran’s pain tore through my wrist when Hale caught him beneath the arms. Caspian shifted his weight away from me to keep us both upright, and Caspian’s line tightened with the effort.
For one terrible beat, none of us moved.
The bridge swayed beneath our feet. Kieran’s breath came fast against Hale’s shoulder. Caspian’s fingers dug into my upper arm.
“I have you,” Hale said.
Kieran nodded once.
We moved again.
The silver line behind us widened. I heard the brace lift another fraction, iron dragging through its housing.
Delphine reached the far end first.
She stepped from the final board onto solid ground and turned immediately, her repaired hand extended toward us. Hale passed Kieran to her long enough to clear the last uneven join. I helped Caspian down beside them.
The trees swallowed most of the Tower’s light. A cart waited beneath their cover, set back from the path with dark cloth tied over its lamps. The horse shifted when it saw us, harness leather creaking in the quiet.
Two women stood beside it.
One had already started toward us.
“Rev?”
She reached me at a run and stopped only long enough to look at my face. Then her arms closed around me.
She smelled of flour, woodsmoke, and the lavender soap her grandmother kept beside the kitchen sink. The scent belonged to a life before hearings and locked rooms. My knees nearly gave under it.
Iron scraped inside the tunnel behind us.
Rev released me. “Cart. Now.”
She took Caspian’s uninjured side before he could object. He allowed it, which told me more about his pain than his face had.
Cosima had not moved.
She stood near the covered lamps with one hand at her throat, staring at Delphine.
Delphine stared back.
Cosima held out her hand. “Can you climb?”
Delphine took it. “Yes.”
Rev helped Caspian beneath the rear canvas. Hale followed with Kieran, one hand braced behind his injured shoulder. Delphine climbed in beside them. I was the last to leave the ground.
Metal struck stone behind us. The brace had reached the top of its housing.
Cosima took the reins. Rev knelt beside Caspian while I held a strip of linen around his ribs.
The horse pulled us into the trees.
Shapes appeared at the tunnel mouth as the cart reached the first turn. No shout followed. Either the stewards had not seen us beneath the trees or the dark cloth over the lamps had done its work.
I watched the Tower through a gap in the canvas until the trunks closed over it.
Rev pulled the linen firm around Caspian’s ribs and tied it off. “This will keep you from twisting. It will not fix a cracked rib. If breathing gets harder, tell me immediately.”
His face had gone white, but his breathing deepened once the linen held him steady.
She wedged a folded blanket beneath Kieran’s injured arm and showed Hale how to keep the shoulder from shifting when the cart turned.
At the first bend, Cosima slowed the horse long enough for Rev to take the reins. Cosima climbed beneath the rear canvas and settled beside Delphine.
For a moment, they only looked at each other.
“Do you know me?” Cosima asked.
Delphine’s fingers tightened over the front of her coat. “In pieces. Enough to know you.”
Cosima inhaled sharply. “I thought you were dead.”
“That was what they told everyone.”
Cosima held out both hands without moving closer.
Delphine looked at them, then stepped into her arms.
Cosima embraced her carefully. Delphine pressed her face against Cosima’s neck and held on while the cart rocked beneath them.
When they separated, Delphine kept hold of Cosima’s sleeve. “Lior?”
“He’s waiting at the farmhouse,” Cosima said. “He wanted to come. We wouldn’t bring him this close to the Tower.”
Delphine closed her eyes. Her repaired hand trembled against Cosima’s arm.
“Take me to him.”
“We are.”
Cosima kept her hand around Delphine’s. “The dock courier warned us you might use the bridge route if Walkin moved against you. Juno arranged for someone to watch from first bell until midnight every day after that.”
“You waited all day?” I asked.
“Rev took the morning. I took the afternoon. The cart stayed in the trees.”
Mud had dried thick around the wheels, and the blankets beneath us held the cold of the long wait.
Delphine opened her coat and withdrew the folded hearing pages.
“The clerk gave me these when the doors opened.”
Cosima did not reach for them. “Are they complete?”
“Everything entered before the blackout. My statement. Kieran’s refusal. The administrator’s objections. Walkin’s order.”
“Keep them on you until we reach the house. We have dry paper, sealing wax, and two witnesses waiting there. We’ll make copies before anyone sleeps.”
For a while, the wheels and Kieran’s uneven breathing were the only sounds inside the canvas.
“Where are we going?” Hale asked.
“A farmhouse two hours north,” Cosima said. “It belongs to a family that supplied Zenith Hall before Quill replaced them. Rev’s grandmother has trusted them for years. The Council does not know they kept the old road open.”
“And after that?”
Cosima looked at the record in Delphine’s hands.
“Aldric’s annex is already outside the Tower.
Magnus sent copies of the full filing to two other Council seats before he left the mountain.
Juno has statements from families who were told their children vanished during review.
These pages connect those records to what Walkin did tonight. ”
The names and papers crowded the dark beneath the canvas. We had escaped with proof, and already I could feel its weight passing from hand to hand.
“The administrator stayed behind,” I said.
Cosima’s expression tightened. “Was her objection entered?”
“More than one.”
“Then it will be harder for Walkin to remove her quietly once copies of the hearing leave the mountain.”
“Marrow stayed too.”
I gave them the shortest account I could: Marrow had fought us, I had touched his Mark without changing it, and he had let a squad pass without calling them into the corridor.
Hale’s gaze dropped to the blood on his knuckles. “He fought hard enough that they’ll believe we left him bound.”
Cosima looked from him to me. “We’ll record both parts when we reach the house.”
I leaned back against the wooden side of the cart. Outside, branches brushed the canvas and released cold drops that darkened the cloth. The road climbed, turned, and left the sound of the river behind.
Delphine had fallen asleep against Cosima’s shoulder with one hand still closed over the hearing pages. Kieran’s breathing had steadied beneath Hale’s watch. Caspian’s thumb moved slowly over the silver line at my wrist.
We had crossed the bridge, but the administrator, Marrow, and every resident still inside remained within Walkin’s reach.
Delphine shifted in her sleep. Paper whispered beneath her hand. The Tower no longer held every account of what it had done.